Flickr team doubles and prepares (fingers crossed) for its return to greatness

It took a mere month for new Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer to hear the Internet’s plea. Shortly after she was announced as the new head of the beleaguered Web company, users quickly begged her to pay a little attention to the increasingly ignored yet beloved Flickr. The “Dear Marissa Mayer, please make Flickr awesome again” plea was heard around the Internet, and it turns out… she listened.

According to Web scion Robert Scoble‘s reports, she’s doubled the size of the Flickr team within the past week. While the team has continued to build for Flickr with new tools and features, there’s no arguing that the Web app missed the first wave of mobile – and missed in a big way. This turned out to be a rather massive oversight, and compounded with Yahoo’s general mismanagement of the Flickr staff, there has been an understandable amount of concern about Flickr’s future.

But Mayer is reportedly focused on products — taking a note from Google’s strategy over to her new job – and it appears that Flickr has again become a priority. So how does Yahoo pull Flickr back from the brink?

The obvious answer here is mobile. The iPhone is the most popular camera on Flickr but it’s a one-sided relationship. It’s time for Flickr to relaunch its iOS app and then some. The current version has a measly 2.5 stars, and two comments posted two days ago complain about login issues, calling it “lame and frustrating.” The nicest thing I can say about the app is that it provides basic Flickr utility, but users want something much more compelling.

Fortunately, the tide might be turning as Yahoo reinvests in one of its tentpoles.